


sweet, sweet fantasy

by Avelys



Category: EXO (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - High School, Ambiguous/Open Ending, Friendship, Ice Cream, M/M, Minor Jung Soojung | Krystal/Kim Jongin | Kai, Public Masturbation, Underage Drinking, asshole jongin, kind of
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-13
Updated: 2017-02-13
Packaged: 2018-09-24 03:06:28
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 11,084
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9696989
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Avelys/pseuds/Avelys
Summary: Ice cream soda, cherry on the top.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Written for ForKadiOnly.
> 
> Title is a reference to a Mariah Carey song <3

As a child, Jongin had a tendency to wander around. Perhaps there was a tic in his spirit, or perhaps rhythm in his blood. He didn’t know, really; he’d never given it any thought. All he knew was that he had the chronic inability to stay still and in one place like a good child. Instead, his feet had life of their own, and he often found himself wandering far from the safety of his mother.

The mall posed a particular challenge: large and full of places to explore, Jongin could never keep his impulses under control. Everything was a powerful distraction, from the whiff of cinnamon to the sight of a stuffed bear. His poor mother often found herself scouring the entirety of the premises for her darling son (whom she would invariably find pressed against the counter of an Aunt Anne’s, or tossing around the stuffing in a Build-a-Bear factory.)

On one fateful day, it was not the smell of freshly baked goods, the poster of the latest movie, or the tinny sounds emitted by the shitty speakers of the newest Nintendo. No, it was something else entirely: a sign shaped like a giant ice cream cone heralding the birth of a new store. Jongin could see it from all the way across the mall, and he was practically salivating at the sight.

He turned to his mother with wide,wide eyes. “Mom,” he wheedled pitifully, doing his best to affect a pleading face. “Can I please, _please_ have some ice cream?”

“Jongin, no.” His mother shook her head with a sigh. “It’s almost time for dinner, and if I let you have ice cream, it’ll ruin your appetite.”

“But _mom_ ,” Jongin whined. He knew the battle was essentially lost- while his father might have relented, his mother was made of sterner stuff- but that wasn’t going to stop him from trying to get his way. “They have waffle cones, see?” With one grubby finger, he pointed toward the store with all the earnestness of the child he was. “ _Waffle cones_ , he stressed, in case his mother was unable to grasp the full implications of the term.

His efforts were rewarded with a stern look. “That’s enough, Jongin,” his mother chastised him. “I’m not getting you ice cream before dinner, do you understand me? Maybe if you behave, I’ll let you have some after. But definitely not before.” She grabbed his wrist, her grip firm. “Now come along. We have to buy you some new clothes before school starts.”

Though he pouted, he knew that there was little to be done: he easily recognized the tone of finality in her voice. That was not to say he had given up, however. With one sad glance behind him, he allowed himself to be led where she willed, knowing that his plan of escape would require near immaculate timing to be -pulled off correctly.

His opportunity came in the baby Gap store: unable to find denim overalls in his size (and who even liked wearing overalls? Jongin _despised_ them,) she had been forced to talk to a sales associate for help. With her attention thusly occupied, it was not a difficult task for him to sneak out of the store.

Once free of its confines, he broke into a sprint, with the ice cream shop as his destination. The feeling of adventure and the pure joy of action were singing in his veins as he sped past one person and another. Running like this, doing _something_ like this- it made him feel as free as the wind.

A child of peak conditioning, Jongin was able to make it all the way to the ice cream shop before collapsing in a breathless heap. From his place on the floor, he could see that the store was jam-packed. Frowning, he allowed his eyes to follow the crowd all the way to the counter, which was manned by a pitiful three cashiers.

Sufficiently recovered, he squeezed his way in. Allowing his eyes to roam from bucket to bucket of ice cream, he licked his lips. Seeing children with cups and cones all around, he felt a pang of envy; what he would have _given_ to have parents that acquiesced to his every whim. Shaking his head, he determinedly directed his attention back toward the display, where the beautiful ice cream lay waiting for him.

As he ran his eyes down the innermost row, he locked eyes with what seemed to be a boy his age, standing on the other side of the counter. They held each other’s gazes for a few moments, before Jongin childishly made a funny face, eliciting laughter from the other.

It was more than a little mystifying, seeing those unnaturally wide eyes crinkle at the sides in laughter. 

The boy on the other side of the counter shook his head, but giggled again when Jongin cycled through to a different face. After the third (or was it the fourth?) face, the other boy abruptly turned and left, leaving Jongin standing there, alone and awkward. 

There was not even time to wonder at anything, for the other boy had seemingly immediately returned, this time holding a waffle cone. With his free hand, he gestured at the buckets, as if telling Jongin to pick a flavor.

Though he was still in the first grade, Jongin had already learned that nothing came free (a life lesson in kindergarten, courtesy of Sehun who would charge a chicken nugget to use his hot wheels set.) So, as if to demonstrate his lack of currency, he reached deep into his pockets, and pulled them inside out.

The wide eyes blinked once, twice, and then the other boy was giggling again. When (finally!) his laughter subsided, he shook his head, and mouthed _free_.

Well, that certainly changed things. With a delighted smile, Jongin pointed toward the flavor he most desired- cotton candy, because his palate was just _that_ disgusting- and watched happily as the boy on the other side of the counter faithfully delivered a scoop onto the waffle cone.

The counter was, of course, much too high for them to transfer the cone. The wide-eyed boy looked stumped for a moment, though he brightened before too long. Once more, he disappeared into the back, and within moments, emerged from a door on the other end of the store marked _Employees Only_.

Jongin watched with bated breath as his ice cream neared, borne precariously in the hands of the other boy and brought forward on uneven steps. He was a little worried that it would end up as an awful splatter on the ground, but such fears proved unfounded: the ice cream was delivered to his person perfectly intact, with even the toppings still balanced atop it.

Eagerly, he grabbed the cone, and licked a dollop off of it with great dexterity. As he rubbed some of it off the sides of his mouth, it occurred to him that he must appear to be exceedingly ungrateful. He rectified that with a (hopefully brilliant) smile. “Thank you,” he said with as much sincerity as he could manage.

The other boy giggled. “No problem.”

Both of them were beginning to feel tired on their tiny legs, so the other boy led them to a nearby unoccupied booth. “I’m Jongin,” he introduced as they seated themselves into the booth. “I haven’t seen you around in kindergarten. Are you new? What’s your name?” He talked a mile a minute, but the other boy didn’t seem to care overmuch, if his heart shaped smile was anything to go by.

“I’m Kyungsoo,” came the shy answer. “My family just moved here for the summer.”

The way that his eyes crinkled into crescents, that his mouth formed a heart shaped when he smiled: to Jongin, it was the most adorable thing he had ever seen. He just wanted to reach forward and squish the other boy by his chubby cheeks. In an uncharacteristic moment of self-awareness, he realized that it probably wasn’t the best thing to do to a complete stranger. Resultingly, he blushed.

That only served to exacerbate matters. “Your face is getting red like a cherry!” Kyungsoo noted excitedly, his face screwing up into an even more adorable, squeezed expression. 

“It is not!” Jongin defended, mortified. Hurriedly, he raised his cone up for another lick, in hopes that the coldness that the desert exuded would cool his heated face, or else that the scoop of ice cream would function as a cover of some sort.

Kyungsoo sat back in his chair, sighing happily. “You’re really funny,” he decided. “We should be friends. You can come and eat ice cream every day, and we can talk.” His face morphed into something lonely and forlorn, eyes distant. “All my friends are still back in my hometown, and I haven’t had the chance to make any new ones,” he explained mournfully.

Feeling sympathetic, Jongin reached forward and patted the other boy’s hand. “Don’t worry,” he declared. “I’ll be your _best_ friend.”

-

Time passed, and Kyungsoo grew up while Jongin grew taller.

While theirs was a friendship of the summer, it surprisingly endured. Every summer, they had one another all to themselves, but for the majority of each year, Kyungsoo’s parents removed their family back to their hometown. The first time, Jongin had been afraid that their bond would prove unable to survive the challenge. As a child is wont to do, he confided his fears to his mother.

“What if he doesn’t like me anymore?” he worried fretfully. “What if he finds cooler friends back home?” These were the thoughts that had crept in his mind as he feigned his smile and hid his worries, and now they came flooding out like a deluge unleashed by the unlocking of a dam.

A conventional mother might have sat him down with soothing words about distance making the heart grow fonder. But Mrs. Kim had always been a practical woman: as a single mother, she had to be. So she simply looked at him sardonically, telling him, in her no-nonsense manner, “You live in the age of technology, Jongin. Send him a text or call him or something. The distance between you two doesn’t mean there has to be radio silence.” Here, a pause. “God, if we had cell phones back when I was a kid…” and he knew well enough to leave before she got the chance to wax nostalgic.

It was sound advice. The first time that they skype called one another, Jongin had involuntarily let out a (hopefully) inaudible breath of relief. An excess of ice cream had rendered him fat over the summer, and while he knew it not, his girth was impeding his ability to make friends. It followed, therefore, that he grew quite attached to what few he did have, chief amongst them being Kyungsoo. Seeing the face of his friend, hearing his voice: it was a relief.

“Hey Soo,” he had said happily, waving both hands excitedly at the blurry image of his best friend, his teeth bared in a toothy grin. He could feel himself practically bouncing in his seat; his enthusiasm simply could not be contained. “How are you settling in?”

Kyungsoo had smiled back that heart-shaped smile he had grown so fond of. “I mean, it’s not the same without my best friend,” he confided reassuringly, picking at the sleeve of his penguin hoodie, “But I’m alright.”

Jongin had, to his eternal delight, discovered that the great distance between them was unable to diminish their closeness. Nearly every day, they took some time to chat. Texts, calls, and video chats were all utilized in their quest to maintain their friendship. And before they knew it, the entire year had passed and Kyungsoo’s family was back in town.

-

Every year brought with it a host of changes, but none so profound as his first year of high school. Puberty and weight loss had collaborated to unveil a rather handsome bone structure, which combined with his amiable disposition to secure him a decent position on the social pyramid.

It had been such a whirlwind, honestly. One moment he was the fat child no one liked, whose only friend lived a million miles away. The next, he was ‘hot’ and popular, and hung out with kids like Sehun (who had always been popular for as long as he could remember) and Chanyeol (a derpy upperclassman that was somehow considered ‘cool’.) He didn’t particularly like either of them, but they did wonders for his social standing: popularity was a very heady experience.

Very quickly, it became very apparent that his new set of friends had priorities that were very different from what he was used to. Skipping school was a pastime that he had never indulged in, and while it still felt a little bit weird not to be in class, he found himself rapidly getting used to it, for better or for worse. 

Athletics was another. Weighed down by his weight as he had been, Jongin had never been able to perform well in P.E. But once puberty had stripped away the baby fat to reveal a surprisingly athletic frame, he quickly began to excel. He was a natural, it seemed; from running to football, everything just _came_ to him.

This did not go unnoticed. “You should try out for basketball,” Chanyeol had said offhandedly one day as they were changing in the locker room, the statement poised with a casual air. The taller boy was on the team and close friends with the captain, Kris Wu. If Chanyeol thought that Jongin would be able to make it, he probably was right.

Jongin paused. It was an attractive prospect. The attention he had received thus far for simply being himself had been immensely gratifying, and he could imagine that attention multiplying _at least_ twofold if he was on a sports team. Threefold if he got a letterman jacket.

Maybe he would even get a girlfriend, he mused. The thought seemed very attractive: there was a girl that he’d had his eye on for quite a while- a cheerleader named Soojung- but she’d always been out of his league (even despite the rapid elevation of his social status.) This might be his chance to launch himself into the upper echelon and make a connection.

On the other hand, the commitment that extracurricular sports demanded was very time-consuming. He was sort of struggling through homework as it was, and then he had to make time for his skype calls to Kyungsoo. Really, there was precious little time left in his schedule, and he would be hard pressed to fit tryouts, practices, and games into it.

“I don’t know,” Jongin answered at last, once he’d found his tongue. He scrunched his forehead up in thought. “Can I think about it?” As he wasn’t sure about what course of action to take, it was probably best to keep his options as open as he could.

Chanyeol raised an eyebrow; he probably hadn’t been expecting such a response. “I mean,” he said slowly, shutting his locker. “It’s up to you. Tryouts are in a few weeks, so you have plenty of time to make up your mind.” From his tone of voice, it was very clear that he fully expected Jongin to try out for the team in the end.

With those parting words, he departed, probably to hang out with some others in their social circle. Jongin was left by himself, with nothing but his buzzing thoughts and his P.E. clothes for company.

-

It was the first ever time that Jongin had ever been late to their skype call.

If Kyungsoo either noticed or cared, he gave little to no discernible indication of it. It was a little difficult to make out his face on the pixelated screen (neither of them had cameras of particularly good quality, so it wasn’t wholly unexpected) but it was child’s play for Jongin to recognize that heart-shaped smile he was so familiar with- even if only the barest of outlines were visible.

“Hey Soo,” he greeted the other, still breathless from the way he had sprinted all the way home.

The beatific smile widened, and the large eyes vanished into crescents. “Jongin,” he greeted, sounding excited- as he always did. 

While puberty had had a transformative effect on Jongin, Kyungsoo had remained more or less the same. Perhaps he had become a tad taller (though obviously not much) and maybe his face had been altered a little (though again, not by much,) he was more or less the same Kyungsoo that had befriended him all those years ago in the ice cream shop.

“How was school today?” He winced at the mundaneness of his question, but such was the stuff of conversation when contact was made just once a day. There wasn’t enough fodder for real conversation, but there was a _want_ , a need to maintain closeness. Jongin distantly wondered if Kyungsoo felt it too, the way that their friendship was weakening at the seams, with stray threads peeling off of the fraying edges every day.

Kyungsoo shrugged in response, leaving Jongin none the wiser, really. “It was all right,” he responded. “Choir was awful, but you don’t need to hear me complaining about Baekhyun’s diva antics _again_.” A grimace.

Jongin quirked his lips (because Kyungsoo _did_ complain about his friend a lot, and it _was_ entertaining.) He tried to think of something witty to say, something funny, but his mind came up empty-handed. Kyungsoo must have thought him quite silly, sitting there and picking at his sleeve with nothing to say.

Their efforts to maintain their friendship _had_ worked, at first. Back when they were younger; when everything was interesting and worth talking about; when the ebullience of youth made up for dullness of conversation. But it was different now. Now, it seemed like they were just holding onto the remnants of something that might have held meaning in the past. Somewhere along the lines of time, they had unknowingly lost each other- and it had taken him _this long_ to realize it.

Did they even have anything in _common_ anymore? Jongin didn’t know.

Still, it wouldn’t do to give voice to these thoughts, and Kyungsoo was probably expecting him to say something.

“Yeah,” he replied at last. “My day was pretty much the same as yours. Just hanging out with the guys, putting up with Chanyeol’s idiocy.”

A lie. Dishonesty was never a good idea in a friendship, but the only thing that had happened of significance was Chanyeol’s suggestion of trying out for basketball… and that wasn’t something he really wanted to share with Kyungsoo. He didn’t even know why; it just felt like something he shouldn’t do. Keeping his worlds separate seemed right.

He tensed, waiting for Kyungsoo to call him out on it. In the golden days of their friendship, Kyungsoo had been closer to him than anything, and would have immediately called out his bullshit. Jongin braced himself for it.

But it never came. The figure in the camera simply nodded his head, a few hundred bobbing pixels, and began to ramble off about something inane that Jongin just didn’t care about.

It felt like a sign.

-

Making the basketball team had been easy, especially under the tutelage of Chanyeol and Kris.

Neither of them were the brightest bulbs in the drawer- even _Jongin_ could recognize that- but when it came to basketball, they knew their stuff. And everything was imparted to Jongin through the most obvious of ways: practice. Lots and lots of practice. Day in and day out, after school and during lunch breaks.

“You’re coming home late these days,” his mother commented once over dinner, an eyebrow raised as if to challenge him for an answer. She was done eating and was cleaning the countertop with what looked like a brown rag. Jongin had opted for seconds.

Jongin gulped down whatever was in his mouth (he ate like a horse these days.) “I’ve been practicing basketball with Chanyeol and Kris,” he explained nervously. “I made the team. It’d look great on college apps and stuff.”

His mother made an approving noise. “Good on you,” she commented with a sharp smile. “I don’t know how you juggle all these things. Basketball alongside your studies and a long-distance friendship? I know _I_ wouldn’t have been able to do it.” Seemingly satisfied, she proceeded to resume polishing the countertop.

Jongin was about to shovel another spoonful of rice down his gullet, when something about the rag his mother was using caught his eye. “… mom?”

“Yes, honey?”

He pointed. “Is that my onesie?” he asked, face scrunched up in confusion.

His mother looked down at the rag in her hand. “So it is,” she acknowledged. “It’s the bear onesie you had when you were little.” She sighed, a fond look in her eye. “You were so cute with it on. A pity it doesn’t fit you anymore, hmm?” Her eyes bore a teasing glint.

“Uh… yeah.” Jongin was left feeling extremely uneasy.

-

It finally happened one day after a game.

They had won of course. Looking back, Jongin doubted that Soojung would have approached him if they hadn’t. But as infatuated as he was, there was very little going through his mind as she walked toward him in slow motion, her hair flying behind her by the flow of the air conditioning, her smile stunning, and her cheerleading outfit laced tightly. He was immobilized, both body and mind.

His friends were more on the indifferent side. Kris stared at her coolly, while Chanyeol waved her over with his usual cheer and ebullience.

“Hey Soojung,” Chanyeol greeted her, cheerfully and nonchalantly, wiping sweat from his forehead with a ratty towel. “What are you doing in the locker room?”

“Yeol. Kris.” Soojung replied boredly, inclining her head and purposely ignoring his question. Slowly, meaningfully, she turned her curious gaze to Jongin. “And who is this?” she asked, one end of her smile quirking upward into a smirk.

Jongin was tongue tied. “I’m- uh, my name is Jongin,” he eked out at last. He felt as if his face was blushing a maddeningly deep red (though he ardently hoped that he was mistaken.)

A raised eyebrow. “Jongin,” Soojung tested the word. “I can’t say I’ve seen you around before. Are you new?”

“Um,” he said intelligently. “Yes. I mean, no. I mean, I’m new to the team.”

Jongin just wanted to bang his head against the wall. He might sustain some minor brain damage, but the catharsis would be worth it. And it wasn’t like his brain was doing much work to begin with anyway; both his grades as well as his (current) eloquence (or lack thereof) furnished exemplary proof of that.

“He’s a freshman,” Chanyeol chimed in helpfully. Kris remained taciturn as usual.

She studied him with a contemplative expression. “A freshman, huh?” After a few moments, she nodded, decision made. “I normally don’t invite freshmen to my parties, but you seem alright. Friday, seven thirty. Don’t forget it.” Soojung was all smiles once more as she turned back to Chanyeol and Kris- though her eyes remained frighteningly sharp. “And of course, I’ll be expecting you two to be there.”

Chanyeol nodded enthusiastically, while Kris merely inclined his head.

Evidently satisfied, she left, her shoes tapping loudly against the linoleum.

Blinking, Jongin pinched himself and patted his face disbelievingly. “Did that really just happen?” he muttered quietly, in awe. He had been expecting to enjoy a plethora of benefits from being on the team, but not that it would pay off quite so quickly.

It seemed that joining the team was one of the best decisions he could have made.

-

Kyungsoo blinked at him from the tiny box on Jongin’s computer screen, looking for all intents and purposes like an expressionless owl. Neither his features nor his manner gave any impression of someone passing judgment, but Jongin felt incredibly exposed under his scrutinizing gaze nevertheless. Uncomfortably, he pushed the sunglasses higher up on the bridge of his nose, and the blanket tighter around his head.

“Just so you know,” Kyungsoo sounded sharply amused, “Those sunglasses make you look like a douche, and the Pororo blanket makes you look like a dweeb.”

“You were the one who got me the blanket,” Jongin defended himself. The sunglasses on the other hand, while a necessary evil (to shield him and his massive hangover from the sun), was not something that he had an excuse for.

“So I was,” Kyungsoo allowed, though he still wore an annoying smirk on his visage.

The party the previous day was to blame for his current sorry state. He had imbibed some amount of alcohol (how much had he had? He couldn’t remember, honestly,) at the urging of his friends. After that, the entire night had become a blank sheet, consigned to the annals of oblivion. And perhaps it was better that way, he reflected: he had woken up with a splitting headache, bloody tissues stuck into his tender nose (he remembered accidentally walking into a wall, a moment that just made him want to roll himself into a blanket burrito and swear off the light of day for the rest of eternity,) and Soojung’s number written on the inside of his wrist in neat handwriting (only a little smudged, definitely still readable.)

Well, okay. The previous night _obviously_ had not been a complete bust if he had managed to obtain her number. Still, that didn’t mean that he wasn’t suffering now.

The clock on his bedside told him that it was close to six at night, as did the one in the corner of his computer. But Jongin knew that it was really too goddamn early to be awake. All he wanted to do now was crawl back into his bed and lay his head down on the softness of a down pillow. But he had missed yesterday’s skype call with Kyungsoo, and he would be an awful friend to ditch him now.

“You don’t look so good,” Kyungsoo noted, concern seeping into his voice. Briefly, Jongin was reminded of how caring the other boy had always been when they were little. “Is school stressing you out?”

He didn’t doubt that he looked like shit. It had taken all his strength to keep himself from collapsing against the back of his chair. There was really no energy to expend toward good posture and a façade of wellness. He felt much too shitty to try and look anything but.

“I was just out late last night,” Jongin muttered absentimindedly, rubbing soothing circles into his temples. Maybe if he massaged his head enough, he could send the headache within an eviction notice.

A raised eyebrow. “Last night?” Kyungsoo queried, voice soft.

“Yeah, with the guys on the team.” As soon as the words escaped his mouth, he froze and cursed himself for the slip, knowing that he had made an error. He had ditched Kyungsoo to go to Soojung’s party with the others, and had given schoolwork as an excuse. Distantly, he prayed that Kyungsoo wouldn’t call out the discrepancy in his story.

The raised eyebrow scrunched and almost joined together with another as Kyungsoo’s face assumed a confused expression. “The team?” He didn’t sound upset, only confused.

“Oh, I didn’t tell you? Haha, I must have forgotten.” Even to his own ears, his voice sounded tinny and fake. He could only hope that Kyungsoo’s bullshit radar had dulled over the years. “I made the basketball team. I’ve been hanging out with some of the other guys.”

In hindsight, hiding it from his friend hadn’t been the best of ideas, and Jongin could not comprehend for the life of him why he had done that. But then, it wasn’t as if he had an obligation to tell every little detail about his life. Mentally repeating that to himself as a mantra, he tried to banish the guilt pooling at the bottom of his stomach.

“But I thought you were studying last night?” 

He should have known better than to think himself in the clear.

“Uh, did I say that?” Lies, he knew exactly what excuses he had given. “Yeah. That’s what we were doing. Um, we got together. To study. And it ran pretty late.”

There was a moment of fraught silence as Kyungsoo digested his lies. Jongin could hear his heart pulsing in his ears, he was so anxious. As far as excuses went, his were pretty thin, even to him. Who the heck would study with their teammates? A tutor would be several times more effective.

Although, in his defense, he had woven his story on the spot, under the heavy shackles of a hangover.

When Kyungsoo spoke again, his voice was soft. “You should probably get some rest then. I’ll call you again another time.”

Before Jongin could even blink in reaction, the connection was cut.

-

There was something grim, something fatal about the inevitable. The sun would always set and shroud the world in murky darkness; the tide would always pull away, leaving the sandy shores bereft. Everything came to an end sooner or later, and Jongin was sorry that the end of his friendship with Kyungsoo came sooner rather than later. They had changed too rapidly, and the distance between them- already wide and insurmountable- had become too great for even their best of efforts to bridge.

Still, life continued. It was just the end of a friendship, hardly the end of the world. He had many friendships after all: Sehun, Chanyeol, Soojung, and numerous others. Jongin would miss Kyungsoo for a long time. There would be something saddening about scrolling through the plethora of texts in a burst of nostalgia, only to reach the end and remember that no new ones were forthcoming.

There was still a thread between them of course: they still skype called once in a while, to catch up on things. As much as their worlds had shifted, as little as they knew one another, severing the last remaining thread that linked them was a prospect that neither of them wanted to consider. So they kept in touch, occasionally. It was more of a formality than anything else at this point, however. The closeness and intimacy that they had enjoyed as children was no more.

It was a chapter drawing to a close: his childhood, the purest days of his life. Jongin was sorry to see it go.

-

The ice cream parlor that Soojung pulled him into was the same one where he had met Kyungsoo years before. Having spent so many summers there, he could recognize it like the back of his hand: the same posters hung on the walls, the same music played from the jukebox in the corner, the same flavors peered up at him from behind the counter.

“I’m going to get the coffee flavor,” she decided. It came across as more of an announcement than a statement, but that was how things were with Soojung: she had always been confident and assured; she knew what she wanted and how to get there. Jongin had always admired and envied that about her: he himself was rather cursed with an appalling case of muddling.

“Sounds good,” he replied. As for himself, he knew exactly which flavor he would be choosing.

The line was long, as it was wont to be in the middle of a blistering summer. He half suspected that a number of customers were here to enjoy the air conditioning as much as they were to eat their ice cream. It would be a while before either he or his girlfriend would be getting their cones. Knowing this, he busied himself with his phone.

**To Chanyeol** : wats up

**From Chanyeol** : this lecture is boring af send help

Jongin snickered. Neither he nor Chanyeol had ever been on the brighter side of the spectrum, but he had at least escaped with a passing grade. The taller boy had had no such luck, and was subsequently forced to sacrifice his summer taking remedial classes. Under normal situations, Jongin would be sympathetic to the utmost degree, but his sympathy was in short supply when it came to Chanyeol.

While admittedly his friendship with Chanyeol had hardly been the stuff of legends initially, the bumbling giant had grown on him. Dumb and immature, Chanyeol nevertheless had a heart of gold, and that had substantially endeared him to Jongin over time.

**To Chanyeol** : i told u that u needed to study for the chem final, this is ur own fault

“Next customer please.”

That was him, he surmised. Soojung was already seated at a booth, digging into a small cup of coffee ice cream. Quickly, he stowed his phone into his pocket, before turning to talk to the cashier. The moment he did so, however, he froze in his tracks.

It was Kyungsoo on the other side of the counter. Only this time, instead of being the little kid playing between the legs of the working adults, it was _him_ looking uncomfortable and overheated in the over-the-top uniform. It was him wearing that heart-shaped smile that Jongin was so used to.

Of course. The Do family always came back to run the ice cream parlor in the summer. Somehow, he had forgotten about that.

“Soo!” he blurted before he could help himself.

The other man’s practiced smile gave way to a look of confusion. “Do I know you?” He squinted, wide eyes narrowing into focused slits. “You _do_ look familiar.”

“It’s me, Jongin!” Jongin answered excitedly, smiling. 

Immediately, the confused look melted into one of recognition, one that caused his heart to swell. 

“Oh! Jongin!” The mouth formed a heart-shaped smile once more, this time a sincere one. The eyes that twinkled back at him, while bright and cheerful, held a tinge of something else: a farawat look of nostalgia, of remembrance. “Sorry I didn’t recognize you. You look different when your face isn’t a handful of fleshy pixels.”

Laughing, Jongin nodded. “My webcam is shit, I know.”

Amused, Kyungsoo shook his head. “So, what flavor did you want?” He asked, hands on his hips and a quirk on his lips. There was an expectant expression on his face- as if he could already tell which flavor Jongin was going to choose. 

“Mmm. The cotton candy?”

Head bobbing, Kyungsoo scraped a scoop from the bucket and dumped it onto a waffle cone. “I see your taste is still as awful as ever,” he remarked dryly. “Going to go ahead and assume no toppings, as usual.”

“You know me.”

Reaching the cash register, Jongin began fishing around in his pocket for his wallet, but Kyungsoo stopped him in his tracks with a shake of his head.

“It’s free,” he explained, holding out the cone to Jongin. There seemed to be watery tears gathering in his large, large eyes. “For old time’s sake.”

Blinking uncertainly, Jongin took the proffered cone. There was so much that he knew he should say- so much that needed to be said. _Sorry. Are you all right?_ The words materialized in his mind, but he found himself unable to squeeze them out of his mouth and into the suddenly fraught air between them.

Kyungsoo moved back to where the ice cream was, scooper in hand. “Next customer,” he called loudly in a slightly hoarse voice, and Jongin knew that he was effectively dismissed.

“Who was that?” Soojung questioned him shrewdly as he sat, a thoughtful glint in her eye.

“Just an old friend,” he answered.

-

Jongin didn’t know if the encounter was to blame, but he suddenly had a renjuvenated interest in his friendship with Kyungsoo. He had chosen easier classes this year, which thankfully gave him the time to give Kyungsoo’s skype calls and texts the attention that they deserved.

“This is the second call this week,” Kyungsoo noted. He was more than a pink blob now- both of them had gotten new computers in the interim, fully equipped with state-of-the-art webcams. “Is there a reason that you’re calling so much?”

Jongin pouted. “Are you saying that I need a reason to call my oldest friend?” he demanded, but his voice was shaky. After years of little more than the echoic imitations of what once was, Jongin knew that his renewed overtures of friendship must come as a puzzling enigma to the other. He resolved to be a better friend. After all, a relationship would only ever amount to the effort that one poured into cultivating it.

Looking back, that was probably the main reason the friendship had disintegrated: he had not prioritized his friend. It was a little silly in retrospect: was a place on the sports team worth facilitating the debilitation of a lifelong friendship? Was the flash-in-the-pan popularity worth it?

Well, no point in hashing about things that were already done. Besides, now he got to have his cake and eat it too.

There was the damage that had already been done, of course. And the distance was still a very real matter. His mother had not been wrong when she intimated that the physical distance was not insurmountable, but emotional distance was another matter. But like magnets, the wires of friendship can snap back together just as easily as they broke apart. The maturity of another year brought to him the lesson that _they didn’t need to share interests._ Their differences gave their conversations a variety that others- in particular, Chanyeol or Kris or Sehun- lacked.

It was late, and it was wholly unsatisfactory, but it was better than nothing.

-

In Jongin’s junior year, Kyungsoo’s family moved into town permanently.

“I’m going to move into town this year,” Kyungsoo had announced on one of their no-longer-rare skype calls, his voice nothing but a fuzzy facsimile of hope. 

“You mean like… for the summer?” Jongin had asked cautiously. He didn’t want to get his hopes up: his unreliable ears had misheard in the past. And even if he hadn’t, who was to say that the plans wouldn’t fall through? Though his friendship with Kyungsoo was still not what it once was, or where he would like it to be, the very thought of the shorter boy moving into town permanently stirred an excitement within him.

Kyungsoo shook his head and Jongin’s breath caught in his throat. “I mean like, all year round,” he answered, looking extremely uncomfortable. “I’m going to be going to your school. Is that alright with you?”

Jongin gawked. “Why wouldn’t I be?” he asked confusedly. “That’s awesome Soo!”

Relief flooded his friend’s face. “Oh, good.” A pause. “I hope I get along with your friends.”

-

Kyungsoo got along with Jongin’s friends exceedingly well.

“He’s so _adorable_ ,” Chanyeol said delightedly as he squished Kyungsoo’s cheeks. Turning, he shot Jongin a disappointed look. “How come you never told me you knew someone this adorable?”

-

He should have seen it coming.

Jongin had gone through the entirety of his junior year without realizing what was cresting in the distance. For him, it was just another year after all. Pass classes, win games, spend time with his friends, spend time with Soojung: these were the things on his itinerary. It left him precious little time to give anything much consideration- and really, he had never had great acuity of mind anyway.

But it was a lesson he had learned before, so he really should have seen it coming.

Like the night that bleeds into the morning, or the ice cream that melts into a sticky and runny river, all things came to an end eventually. For him, it was just his junior year. There had been a similar year before, and another such year would follow.

But for Kris, Chanyeol, and Soojung, it was different. They were seniors, and it was more than the end of a year for them: it was the end of an era, the dawn of a new chapter. They looked ahead to college: new experiences, new friends, a new world to explore. And Jongin would be left behind.

And Jongin didn’t begrudge them that. He would try to keep in touch with them, because that’s what friends did, but he wouldn’t ever dream of holding them from whatever lay ahead of them. He had never given much consideration to the fact that they would leave for pastures unknown, but when he thought about it, it made sense.

For him and Soojung, it was the end of everything.

“I don’t think we should have a long-distance relationship,” she said, trying to explain her choice to him in a way that might be easier to accept. There was a softness in her eyes that belied the pain wrought by her words. They delivered a cruel but necessary message. “I know it sounds like a bad cliché, but it’s just not fair to either of us. We’re both young. We should try new things. We should have the _opportunity_.”

He heard the words; they registered in his mind. Soojung was right, of course. She always was. One of them was heading off to a university, to a new life, while the other would remain behind. They had always been from two separate worlds after all, and the stars had only aligned for them for a minute. Now, their trajectories were assuming the correct courses once more. 

The words made sense to his head, but his heart hurt nevertheless.

“Yeah,” he said softly, keeping his gaze low. “Yeah, okay.”

Her hand sought his, and she held it in a firm grip. Perhaps some part of her sensed that he was a little more troubled than he let on, because she gave him a firm, level look. Soojung, who had never been one to care overmuch about the feelings of others, bored into his eyes with a gaze full of empathy.

“You’re probably feeling a little jilted right now,” she murmured, the corner of her mouth lifting in a half-smile, one that didn’t reach her eyes.

“Define _a little_.” he muttered in reply, bitter about it all.

“And you have every right to feel that way,” she plowed on as if he hadn’t said a word. “But give it some thought. We were never really all that serious anyway, just a high school fling. Isn’t it better to end now, on good terms?”

“A fling?” he questioned disbelievingly. “I loved you.”

She raised an eyebrow. “Did you?” she asked amusedly, as if she knew something he did not.

-

On numb legs, Jongin wandered into the ice cream parlor. It hadn’t been his conscious mind that had taken him there, but rather force of habit: it was a place of good memories, of more carefree days. He evidently remembered that on some level: without any prompting, his legs had picked him up and carried him there on their own.

May did not bear the cool freshness of spring, but neither did it possess the torrid heat of the summer months. Consequently, the store was not as packed as it was in his memories. The only people present was the family crammed in a booth, so it stood to reason that there was no line at the register.

Jongin could see Kyungsoo seated behind the counter, legs akimbo. Without any customers to attend to, the shorter man seemed to be enjoying his time: one hand held a drippy cone of vanilla ice cream, while the other scrolled through his phone in a mechanical motion.

With quick strides, he walked up to the counter and rang the little bell next to the cash register.

The resulting sound caused Kyungsoo to jump, head snapping up immediately. When he looked up at Jongin, the first thing the taller noticed was a white streak across his nose: perhaps he had collided with his ice cream cone in his rush to raise his head.

“Hey Jongin,” he called cheerfully. “Here for ice cream, or just to hang out?”

Shoving his hands into his pocket, Jongin hedged. “Um, ice cream. I guess.”

Kyungsoo nodded, setting down his phone onto the counter and planting his cone into a small cup. Standing up, he dusted his hands off onto his apron. “The usual?” he queried.

“… yeah.”

Perceptive as always, the shorter man could immediately tell that something was wrong. He made to fill Jongin’s order, but kept narrowed eyes aimed at his friend at all times. “You alright dude?” he asked suspiciously. “You seem sort of down.”

Jongin couldn’t help it and let out a hollow laugh. “I wonder why...”

Kyungsoo blinked. “Do you want to go into the back room and tell me about it?” he offered.

-

Getting over Soojung happened more quickly than Jongin would have ever thought possible. Perhaps she was right after all, and they had been nothing more than a shallow high school fling. Certainly that would explain how quickly he was able to put himself at ease with the situation.

Of course, a lion’s share had to be attributed to Kyungsoo. After being informed of the situation, his friend had worked tirelessly to improve his mood by any means possible. Whether it was simply by his company, or if it was the gift of ice cream, or perhaps something else- whatever. It was a powerful reminder of their history.

If there was a silver lining in the whole situation, it was that he was slowly rebuilding his friendship with Kyungsoo. With Chanyeol and Soojung preparing for college, and since Sehun was spending the summer with his family, there had been few options really. That wasn’t to say that Jongin didn’t have an interest in resuscitating the closeness that they had enjoyed in their childhood: on the contrary, he looked back on them with about as much fondness as humanly possible, and was excited at the prospect of finding a way back to those times.

He hadn’t resolved the situation mainly due to uncertainty. There was a comfort in safety, even if that safety was boring and unsatisfying. He knew that he could clear the air between them with just a few words, but those same words would drop him at the trailhead of a path whose destination remained uncertain. It had not seemed worth it to risk whatever semblance of friendship existed between them.

And what did exist? They were close enough, but nowhere near the unadulterated familiarity that had characterized their bond in childhood. They were friends, but they had been _brothers_. It was at once great and unsatisfying: a contradictory cocktail of feelings, to be sure.

But it seemed that this breakup with Soojung was just the spark he had needed to breathe a new life between them once more.

-  
Hanging out with Kyungsoo was different than he had anticipated.

Perhaps that was because he was accustomed to a different idea of what was ‘fun’. Being friends with Chanyeol and Soojung had acclimated him toward going to parties and shooting hoops. He had come to enjoy the loud throbbing of blaring music emanating from the Jung family’s surround sound system; the skunky smell of some pothead doing weed in the corner of Chanyeol’s living room; the feel of his hand on the basketball and the thrill of scoring points.

“A movie?” he asked dumbly, distantly wondering if he had heard Kyungsoo correctly. “You want me to come over to your house to watch a movie?” He could not recall the last time he had done something so… inane.

“A movie.” Kyungsoo affirmed. “I have ice cream too. The stuff we didn’t sell.” He paused, and when he spoke again his voice was fond. “Nobody likes that cotton candy flavor of yours. I got to take home the whole bucket today.”

Jongin furrowed his brow. “Ice cream and a movie,” he repeated, mulling over the words in his head.

“I’ve never been through a breakup myself, but Baekhyun assures me that this is the most effective way of making yourself feel better,” Kyungsoo explained. “I’m just going to take his word for it. The guy _has_ to be a pro at making himself feel better. I can’t imagine life as Byun Baekhyun is anything less than depressing.”

That gave Jongin a laugh. “You have directions for me?” he prompted hopefully. The prospect of watching movies with Kyungsoo didn’t sound at all bad, all things considered.

“I’ll message you,” Kyungsoo promised.

Which was how he ended up _here_ , feeling self-conscious within his car, parked in front of Kyungsoo’s house. Maybe it hadn’t been such a great idea to go out and buy the pororo blanket and bear onesie, he worried fussily. It was something they had always done as children- dressing up in animal onesies- and Jongin had thought that it would be cute to dig up their old traditions.

But now that he was actually here, he was having second thoughts about it. What if it came off as cringeworthy and embarrassing rather than cute?

He was in the middle of debating whether to leave the blanket and the onesie in the car, when a knocking sounded on the car door. Looking up, he saw Kyungsoo peering in with an unabashedly cheerful expression.

And wearing his penguin onesie.

Heart swelling happily in his chest, Jongin let out a relieved sigh, deciding to keep the blanket and the onesie in the duffel bag after all.

“You still have your onesie?” Jongin asked as he stepped out of the car. It was a little reassuring to see that, some aspect of them at least, had not changed.

Kyungsoo furrowed his brow in confusion. “It’s not the same onesie though,” he said perplexedly, his bushy eyebrows meeting above the bridge of his nose. “There’s no way that old thing would fit. This is the bigger version.” To demonstrate, he turned about in place, waddling the entire way as he went.

“Well yeah,” Jongin grinned. “That’s what I meant.”

“Oh.” Though Kyungsoo seemed perturbed, he nonetheless let it slide. He waddled back up the steps toward his house, turning once he reached the doorstep. “Remember to leave your shoes outside the house,” he reminded. 

“Right.” Jongin kicked off his shoes, before following Kyungsoo through the doorway. The Do family’s house was almost exactly as he remembered it- perhaps a little more lived in, now that they were in town year round rather than only for the summer. He smiled as he took in the leather couches and cozy furniture that he remembered so fondly, nostalgia creeping about his person and tickling his insides.

It was almost like his childhood again.

-

The day that changed everything was a Friday. The last Friday of the summer break, to be specific.

It wasn’t so much of a day as it was some type of evening. The sun had already made its way down the horizon, with only its most determined rays persevering as a glowing orange twilight against the deep blue of the night.

“Hey Jongin,” Kyungsoo greeted him brightly as he walked in, his lips quirked in a half-smile. “Bit late, isn’t it? You know that I’m closing up right now, right?” The teasing familiarity in his voice spoke of the entire summer they had spent together, just the two of them. They were very close now.

Jongin pouted. “I came by to visit you, and this is what I get?” he asked the world woefully, dramatically turning his eyes heavenward. “This chastisement?”

With an amused laugh, Kyungsoo shook his head. “I’ll get you some ice cream,” he allowed. “But don’t eat it at the tables; they’ve already been cleaned. You can sit behind the counter.”

“My hero.”

Kyungsoo sighed exasperatedly, grabbing the scoop and rolling up his sleeves.

Jongin watched as Kyungsoo scooped out the ice cream, before expertly mixing it with various toppings. “You’ve become quite good at this,” he remarked. “You’ll be a pro ice cream scooper before you know it. Olympic medal and all.” He wiggled his eyebrows to emphasize his point

“I should hope so,” Kyungsoo retorted, handing him the cone. “God knows I’ve been doing nothing else all summer long.”

With a practiced ease, Jongin swung himself over the counter. And really, it was just a regular habit for him now: he had done it so many times on his countless visits over the summer that he could probably smoothly execute the motion in his sleep.

The ice cream perched atop his cone was not so agile. Once he had maneuvered himself to the other side, Jongin was most displeased to find his cone bare, the scoop of ice cream having landed right atop his crotch.

It might have been a funny sight, honestly, but Kyungsoo only looked alarmed. Before he could stop himself, it seemed, the shorter man had grabbed a handful of napkins from the counter, and was gently patting it to where the ice cream had dropped- on Jongin’s crotch.

Jongin was speechless. He could feel heat rising at the back of his neck, and to his horror, flooding toward his groin.

To his mortification, Kyungsoo too seemed to notice his growing erection. His hands froze, his face looked disconcerted. His mind seemed to catch up to his actions then, and he quickly dropped the napkin and backed away in mortification. If the way he was continuously wringing his hands was of any indication, the entire experience had unsettled him just as badly as it had Jongin.

Clearing his throat, Jongin straightened up. “Do you… do you have a spare pair of pants?”

Kyungsoo, looking anywhere but Jongin’s face, nodded. “There’s a spare pair in the back,” he muttered awkwardly.

Nodding, Jongin hurriedly made his way through the door marked _Employees Only_. Once inside, he locked the door, before pressing his back against it and collapsing to the floor.

Just when his friendship with Kyungsoo was on the verge of total recovery, he thought mournfully to himself.

After a few moments of drowning in a tumultuous sea of self-pity, Jongin picked himself off of the ground. It would not do to dwell on it, he told himself determinedly. He would get himself changed, and then go back outside like nothing was wrong. That was the _best_ course of action.

Or it would be, if his stupid boner would just _go down_.

He very easily found Kyungsoo’s spare pair of pants. Unfortunately, they were sweat pants, which meant that any erection he had would be made exceedingly obvious.

Well, the door was locked…

… maybe he could just do what needed to be done _really quick_ and be done with it. A thrill ran up his spine as he considered the prospect.

Gritting his teeth, he pressed his back against the door once more, this time a sort of barricade. Biting the bullet, he tugged his pants down, revealing his member- annoyingly erect- straining against the front of his white boxer briefs. Luckily, there was not yet the damp stain of pre-cum. Clenching his jaw, he tugged his underwear down as well.

He took his cock in his right hand, and began to clumsily tug on it. 

Jongin had masturbated before, of course. He was a teenaged boy after all- it was sort of a hormonal thing, he supposed. Mentally, he tried to draw up the picture of the things he usually thought about while masturbating. Soojung. Two girls one cup.

_Kyungsoo slowly licking a stripe down his scoop of ice cream, for all intents and purposes looking as if he was licking the head of a penis._ Oh fucking god, where did that thought come from??

Groaning in frustration, Jongin tugged harder. The faster he reached his release, the more quickly the humiliation would end. He had never been one to rush an orgasm- he was more of a proponent for edging- but he was currently in a very peculiar set of circumstances.

His palm moved down the base of his cock toward the head, and his thumb rubbed against the sensitive slit at the tip. Distantly, he noted the presence of slippery pre-cum. It was a good thing that he had taken off his underwear when he did.

With each stroke, he applied more pressure and speed, aiming for maximum friction. To help himself along, he squeezed his buttocks in order to make his dick pulse with every stroke. Faster, faster, more furiously. _The image of Kyungsoo, licking a slow erotic stripe up from the base of his penis to the flared mushroom head._

With a groan, he sped up the pace of his hand. Fuck, he was going to have to leave through the back entrance. There was no way he could face Kyungsoo, not after this.

Feeling that it was beginning to chafe, he quickly spat into the palm of his hand, before returning his attentions to his member. Properly slicked, the motions were much more languid now, and provided greater stimulation. He could feel the edge of the orgasm, he could feel its approach.

When he finally came, it felt like a soiled blanket had been lifted from his brain. Once again capable of clear and rational thought, he gaped in horror at the slippery white semen coating the inside of his hand. 

All at once, a feeling of shame washed over him, as if someone had poured a bucket of iced water over his head. It was something akin to the masturbation phenomenon. Or, well, it was exactly that. How, when you finish, you felt guilty. That was sort of how he felt.

Damn it, he should have just left after changing, there was no need to rub one off in the back room of the Do’s ice cream parlor. Even at the cusp of adulthood, Jongin still found himself amazed at how far he could stretch the bounds of his stupidity.

With his mind fully in control again, he looked around to find a sink. And he did find one, in the back. On the ceiling however, he also found something significantly more concerning.

A security camera pointed directly at him, a red light blinking down at him.

It took a moment for him to process what he was seeing. One tense moment, during which Jongin stared back at the security camera whizzing its way about the room. And then, nearly all at once, the horrifying implications began to set in.

“Oh fuck no,” he whispered, and it was like the earth was opening up beneath him to swallow him whole. Except, maybe in this case, that would have been a preferable alternative to what fate had in store.

-

So Jongin chickened out and did the one thing that he had promised himself he would never do again.

He began to avoid Kyungsoo.

It was much more difficult this time around than it had been before, for a myriad of reasons. The most obvious one was that Kyungsoo lived in town year round now, and went to the same school as he did. So it wasn’t like he could accomplish his goal just by ignoring skype calls or missing their designated calling hours. He found that out the hard way on the first day. Ducking into corners or turning and walking in another direction was obvious as hell, and bugged his conscience, but it was effective.

“I can’t believe you’re such a wimp,” Sehun said disgustedly, but nevertheless shielded Jongin from Kyungsoo’s view at his request. “I never took you to be a coward.”

Really, that was exactly what he was. A coward.

Jongin watched on bated breath as Kyungsoo trudged down the hallway. His heart rebelled wildly when he took note of the dispirited air around him, as well as the glum expression he wore. No doubt that, at this point, Kyungsoo could tell that he was being avoided. A part of Jongin just wanted to dash out and apologize profusely, to reassure him of their friendship; he knew that doing so would banish the sad look from the smaller boy’s face.

But there was another part inside Jongin that was simply a little louder. _How can you face him after what you did in the back of his shop?_ it asked him, viciously prodding him with the red hot iron pokers of shame. _He probably knows all about your perversion after seeing you in the security camera footage._

The thought made him wince. 

“He’s gone now,” Sehun reported dryly. “It’s safe to come out of hiding; the coast is clear. I repeat, the coast is clear.”

Shooting him a dirty look, Jongin nevertheless emerged from the shadows, allowing himself back into the open.

Even as he twisted the combination of his locker, his mind remained on Kyungsoo. He didn’t know what had initially brought his friend to the hormonal attentions of his dick, but whatever it was, it had fostered the birth of something new, annoying, and utterly unbearable. Whenever he saw Kyungsoo around now- which was often- he couldn’t help but flash back to the image of the smaller boy licking vanilla ice cream from the cone; the image of a streak of ice cream swiped across his face, looking positively obscene; the (imaginary) image of Kyungsoo licking a stripe up the underside of-

Bad thoughts, he scolded himself. Distantly, he felt a little tinge of despair course through him. How could he hope to maintain a friendship like this? Avoiding Kyungsoo because he was unable to meet his eyes…

Maybe they just were never mean to remain friends, he reflected sadly with a sigh.

-

The second reason that avoiding Kyungsoo was much more difficult this time around, was Kyungsoo himself. The first time around, Kyungsoo had been many miles away when Jongin decided to let their friendship go, and there had been precious little he could do. But now, as he lived in the same city that Jongin did, there was an abundance of opportunities for Kyungsoo to seize.

Jongin nearly shat himself when, walking into his room, he saw his friend perched on the edge of his bed, face arranged in a closed-off, inscrutable expression. Mentally he prayed that Kyungsoo hadn’t seen him, and was mentally calculating the time he would need to get away to somewhere safe, when the smaller boy swiftly turned his head, wide-eyed gaze closing in on him with startling accuracy.

“Jongin,” Kyungsoo said grimly, heart-shaped smile conspicuously absent.

“Hey there Soo,” Jongin replied nervously, raising a hand in greeting. Knowing that there was no escape now, he reluctantly edged his way into the room, dropping his backpack in the corner and wincing when it made a loud and obnoxious noise.

Serious eyes addressed him, boring into him with an intensity befitting an owl. “Jongin,” Kyungsoo repeated, this time with more conviction. “We need to talk.”

His laughter sounded atrociously brittle and transparent to his own ears, making him wince. Nevertheless, he maintained a wide grin and shrugged. “Ah, Soo,” he babbled. “What is there to talk about? Come on, let’s just shoot some aliens or something-” Anything would be preferable to the ignominy that would no doubt accompany any sort of ‘talk.’

The withering look Kyungsoo shot him was enough to shut his mouth. “O-or we could talk,” Jongin finished weakly. He had a tendency to get tongue tied when nervous, and unfortunately, that same habit was rearing its ugly head now. “Um, what did you want to talk about?” He prayed it wasn’t what he thought it was.

No such luck. “ _This_ ,” Kyungsoo answered grimly, producing a generic jewel case from his person and waving it in the air, as if it were self-explanatory.

Jongin rallied despite his failing spirits. “And what exactly is that?” he braved.

Without answering, Kyungsoo strode over toward Jongin’s television set. Mercilessly, he popped the DVD into the player, and with a few pressed buttons of the remote, the security camera footage documenting Jongin’s… indiscretion.... began to play.

Dead. He was totally dead. With an embarrassed groan, he flopped onto the bed. If he died now, if his earthly body were to expire and allow his soul to join the blessed making their trips to the afterlife, then he would count himself among the lucky.

When Kyungsoo spoke again, his words were slow, soft, and deliberate. “So what was that about?”

Flushing, Jongin rubbed his neck. “What do you… what do you think it’s about?”

Eyes widening, Kyungsoo quickly shifted his gaze back to the screen of the television. “Would it be narcissistic of me to assume that this is a result of what happened… _that_ day?” he asked, his own face coloring with some fresh embarrassment of his own.

At first, Jongin was confused as to why Kyungsoo was speaking so vaguely. Surely his friend had an idea as to what exactly had been going on in Jongin’s head when the events of that day had… transpired. But then, it struck him- solving the confusion by proxy would give both of them ample room to tread backwards if the situation ever grew too uncomfortable.

Buoyed by this deduction, Jongin decided to bite the bullet. 

“It might be,” Jongin acknowledged nervously. “But it would be correct.”

Immediately, the air between them stilled. The ball was in Kyungsoo’s court now; having declared his own confused feelings by proxy, all he had to do for now was await Kyungsoo’s reaction to the news. 

The silence was nerve-wracking. If he were braver, he would have tried to glean some sort of hint from Kyungsoo’s reaction, would have studied his profile to try and guess the answer from the minute moments of his face. He had no doubt that Kyungsoo’s face was stoic- that was how his friend usually reacted to discomfiting news.

But he wasn’t brave. He kept his eyes trained on the floor, watching in rapt interest as the carpeting did absolutely nothing. Never in his life had he ever been so nervous- not when he tried out for the team, not when he talked to Soojung for the first time, not even when he had asked her to be his girlfriend. Whatever he was feeling now- and it was absolutely inexplicable- was in a totally different tier. A league of its own.

When Kyungsoo reached over to take his hand, he felt himself sucking in a quick, shuddery breath.

“Hey, Jongin,” he spoke, his voice barely louder than a whisper. “Let’s go get some ice cream.”

And exhale.


End file.
